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Women in Horror Month: Book Review: Fractured Tide by Leslie Lutz

cover art for Fractured Tide by Leslie Lutz

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Fractured Tide by Leslie Lutz

Blink, 2020

ISBN-13 : 978-0310770107

Available: Hardcover, Kindle edition, audiobook

 

Seventeen-year-old Sia is essential in her mother’s business of chartering trips for tourists wanting to scuba dive. A newbie scuba diver she has been assigned to help navigate a shipwreck is lost, and in her search for him, she senses an underwater threat. When she finds and retrieves her charge, it is too late.  Her mother calls another charter boat, full of high school students, to take Sia, her brother Felix, and the other passengers back.  Just as they’re moving to the second boat, the engines of both boats die, and they are cut off from any radio or cell phone contact, unable to contact the Coast Guard, and running out of water in the middle of the ocean. Then the creature Sia sensed in the shipwreck rises and uses its deadly appendages to sweep everyone over the side and destroy the boats. Sia, Felix and two of the students from the second charter, the only survivors, wash up on a desolate island with almost no food or water, trapped there by the giant sea monster blocking their escape. Sia and the other survivors are pretty well-developed, but not especially likable or cooperative given that if they can’t work together they are probably all going to die.

At first this looked like a straightforward killer animal story, but then it morphed into a survival narrative with science-fictional elements as well (it’s been compared to Lost). Yet there were a lot of things that didn’t make sense for any of those kinds of stories. The creature didn’t discriminate in its destruction of the boats, so it’s odd that the few people Sia has some kind of relationship with (her brother, the boy she thinks is cute, and his ex-girlfriend) are the only survivors. Sia is telling the story in a series of diary entries that she starts writing to her father, who is in prison, in a notebook she discovers shortly after washing up on the island (the story occasionally switches from first to second person as she directly addresses him, which can be confusing) and, in addition to being trapped on the island geographically, and by a killer sea monster, the survivors also seem to be trapped in time. Is this all going on in Sia’s head, or some of it, or is it all really happening? It was confusing, and not at all what I expected.

The parts with the sea creature were terrifying, as were the descriptions of running out of water or getting lost in the dark while scuba diving, and the effects of time repeating on all the characters and their actions took the story into the realm of the bizarre and hallucinatory by the end, but the story didn’t flow naturally– it really was a fractured narrative– and that detracted from my ability to really sink into the story. I’m not sure what I really think of how it worked, but I did love the author’s vivid imagination and description of the thrill and exhiliration Sia felt scuba diving, even in the most dangerous places, under the sea, and the author’s examination of what the thoughts might be of a teen in a tricky family situation with an incarcerated parent. Recommended.

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

 

Posted on February 5, 2021 by , Reply

Book Review: The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

Sourcebooks Landmark, 2018

ISBN-13: 978-1492657965

Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook, audio CD

 

Sebastian Bell wakes up in the rain in the woods, completely disoriented, and without any memories except the name Anna. He hears screaming nearby and is convinced he’s witnessed a murder. Stumbling to the nearest house, a deteriorating Gothic heap called Blackheath, owned by the wealthy Hardcastle family, he discovers he is a guest at a bizarre weekend party commemorating the nineteenth anniversary of the death of young Thomas Hardcastle and also celebrating the arrival home of his older sister, Evelyn. In a striking similarity to Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, the invited guests, all present the day Thomas Hardcastle died, are, for the most part unlikable, judgmental, selfish, and greedy, although a few have hidden, redeeming, characteristics. Some of them, or at least one of them, is a murderer. All of them are trapped at Blackheath. But that’s where the similarity ends.

In a reality-bending twist worthy of David Lynch, it turns out that everyone at the party is unwittingly repeating the same day over and over again. Sebastian (or is he Sebastian?), is told that he has eight opportunities to solve the murder and escape the cycle before he starts repeating the day again without memories and has to start the process over from scratch. In a surrealistic, time-traveling, body-hopping puzzle of a story with echoes of 1930s mystery novels, Gothic family secrets, and ominous suggestions about the future, Turton manages to say quite a lot about the human condition, the advantages and disadvantages of memory, the choices we make, and our ability to change, forgive, and redeem ourselves.

We see the story from our main character’s point of view. Since he’s disoriented, wounded, easily deceived, and has no idea what’s going on or who he actually is, it is completely bewildering and terrifying. It is work to keep track of the various threads of the plot as they twist and tangle with one another, but the story is compelling and worth the effort, and the payoff is fantastic.

I have already said too much and can’t say more without completely spoiling the plot. If you’re bored with straightforward mystery novels or enjoyed The Time Traveler’s Wife, and are ready to suspend disbelief, this is a perfect choice. Highly recommended.

Posted on January 8, 2019 by , Reply

Book Review: Paradox Bound by Peter Clines

Paradox Bound by Peter Clines
Crown, 2017
ISBN-13: 978-0553418330
Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook, MP3 CD.

Time travel. Horror. Thriller. Utter weirdness. Peter Clines has it all covered in Paradox Bound. Those who have read The Fold, Cline’s science fiction/horror hit from last year, will be familiar with Cline’s way of introducing grand ideas, wild twists, and memorable characters. Those new to this writer, expect the kitchen sink. His prose is both lean and rich as he tells the story of a young boy who meets a beautiful oddball woman driving a 1920 Model A Ford, searching for the “real” American Dream. This novel could have been a cheesy mess in lesser hands, but Clines weaves genres together tightly, into a frighteningly enjoyable, breathless ride.

Eli Teague meets Harry(Harriet) not once, but twice, in the strange town of Sanders, Maine, where time seems to stand still, and every day is the “good old days” . She rolls up in her Model A with some baddies on her tail. Eli jumps in to try to help but somehow winds up tied to her and making a mess for her to clean up. The faceless men, creatures or humans without faces, are tracking all of the “searchers,” for the physical American Dream(if the readers can suspend disbelief for this, the book will fly by, with plenty of grins and white knuckles), seeking to kill all in their way. These characters are reminiscent of the Gentlemen from the “Hush” episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (without the floating part). Harry takes Eli on a cross country trek that also skips through time, for as long as America has been in existence. Think The DaVinci Code on crack, watching National Treasure, edited by horror writers. To say more would give away the many twists and turns of this fun romp. Give Clines a try– he is one of the more exciting writers to pop up in recent memory.

Reviewed by David Simms

Posted on April 25, 2018 by , Reply
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